An Analysis of Nicole Westbrook’s It’s Thanksgiving

As many of you might be aware of, Nicole Westbrook recently released a song titled It’s Thanksgiving. It was written and produced by Patrice Wilson (the same guy who rapped about driving past school buses in Rebecca Black’s Friday). Here’s the music video for those who haven’t seen it yet:

In the first scene where Nicole is marking off her calendar, we notice that it’s actually set to November 2013, not 2012. Here the music video is deeper than the lyrics would suggest. The problem today is that Thanksgiving holidays are relatively dull compared to others because there aren’t any songs associated with the holiday. Fortunately for us, Nicole and Patrice found a creative solution, by writing a song about Thanksgiving. The November 2013 calender symbolizes how future Thanksgiving holidays (not just this year’s) will be associated with the song similar to how we still and will continue to associate Christmas with songs such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

The highlight of the music video is when the Usher-look-alike-guy, wearing a turkey costume, unexpectedly drops by Nicole’s home and parties with the group of children. At first I was confused because Halloween already passed long ago, but the song is about Thanksgiving. However I realized later that the turkey costume is supposed to reference a popular internet meme. Possibly to avoid potential legal repercussions, the guy decided to wear a turkey instead of a bear costume.

Since the producer also wrote Friday, it’s not surprising that there are many resemblances between that song and It’s Thanksgiving. Both songs begin with the similar oooh-oooh-yeah melody that don’t really serve any purpose except to lengthen the songs’ runtimes. Also the bridge in Nicole’s song where she teaches us when the holidays are (notice that Halloween is missing), is similar to the days-of-the-week verse in Friday. Again there is a rap part, but this time done by Nicole herself (with a lot of swagger nonetheless). I think that these raps are better for children today instead of listening to people rap about sex, drugs or shoving a gerbil up one’s ass. Lastly we clearly see how both songs promote positive thinking as we hear the lines we so excited (Friday) and we are gonna have a good time (It’s Thanksgiving) several times.

I thought the biggest difference was that while Rebecca was indecisive and didn’t know which seat to sit in, Nicole knew exactly what she wanted to eat. We hear her referencing turkey and mash potatoes several times. What makes this song so popular (it received almost seven million views since being released a week ago) is the use of repetitive words such as we and thank you. This technique is seen in other hit songs like Ke$ha’s Tik Tok, Justin Bieber’s Baby and of course the song that inspired this one, Friday. This is the standard aspiring singers and songwriters should follow if they want to be successful.

If there’s one thing I learned from this video, it’s that you will have a good time if you dress up as a turkey and party with prepubescent children. I’m Canadian so my Thanksgiving already passed, but it’s not too early to start planning how I’m going to spend next year’s holiday.